by John Anthony
We’d pretend to be thrown around the room as the ship twisted and turned in the giant waves. Sometimes we’d have a breach in the bow and have to pull each other onto the bed for safety, while we’d dive into the make-believe seawater to repair the damage.
Maybe the bed would be a life raft, where we’d float for days in the open water, looking for land. Sharks and other monsters in the water would nibble at our toes as we dangled them over the edge. An old couch from the living room sat against one of the walls, and became a small deserted island where we’d find safety.
But that night, there were no pirates—it was just monster movies.
We pulled the mattress off Tommy’s bed and put it in front of the old couch, the TV on the floor in front of the three of us. He messed around with the antenna, trying to get the channels to come in. Sometimes he had to run downstairs for tinfoil to help boost the power of the rabbit ears.
Eventually we got a signal that didn’t cut out every couple of minutes, and we sat there in the dark, wrapped up in blankets, the bag of penny candy from Granddad’s store plopped in front of us, and watched monster movies.
The nights we spent in Tommy’s room were the best of times. It felt like a private fort just for us—me, Tommy, and Cubby—and we could talk about all the important stuff that boys talk about.
“I saw you pulling Steph’s hair yesterday.” Cubby put a handful of cherry sours in his mouth.
Tommy shrugged.
“You couldn’t have pulled it too hard, because she didn’t cry.”
“Don’t be such a goon. You don’t do it to make her cry.” Tommy reached into the bag of sours and grabbed a handful. “You do it to annoy her.”
“How am I supposed to know? I don’t have any sisters,” Cubby said.
I didn’t understand. “What good is annoying her going to do?”
Tommy scratched his temple. “Who knows? But that’s what brothers are supposed to do.”
I thought about it and nodded to myself.
When Count Dracula appeared on the TV, the room seemed to close in. His eyes looked directly at me through the screen, promising he’d be back once the lights went out. The dark corners of Tommy’s bedroom became scarier as sharp chords from the eerie music sank deep into me like fangs.
I turned away from the TV to make it look like I was searching for something, humming to myself to drown out the music.
“Uh-oh, looks like Jack’s gonna run home again.” Cubby laughed, and candy-laced red drool ran from his mouth.
“Am not,” I yelled. I hit him with my pillow. “I ain’t scared.”
Cubby laughed and hit me back with his.
“Hey!” Tommy reached for another handful of sours. “You hear about that new movie?”
I shook my head. “What movie?”
“The space wars one.” Tommy’s eyes got wide. “I guess they fight with laser swords.”
My mouth dropped open. “Laser swords?”
Cubby nodded, his eyes wide, unable to speak due to a mouthful of candy.
“Hey, you goofs.” Steph was standing in the doorway. “You’re supposed to be quiet after dark.”
It seemed like she always had her hands on her hips. I think she learned that from watching how her mom used to be with their dad. For six years old, she had a lot of attitude.
“You hafta knock, you little pest.” Tommy walked over to the door and started to close it. “Time to go to sleep, creepo. Go get into bed.”
“No way, creepo.” She focused on the last word to mimic her brother. “Can I watch TV with you guys?”
Tommy stared her down.
“Please, Tommy?” She stuck out her lower lip. “I don’t like being alone when Mom’s at work. I’ll be quiet.” She pretended to lock her lips with two fingers. “Promise.”
Tommy let out a sigh and nodded. “Fine, but you gotta let us watch what we want. Even if it’s scary.”
She nodded, her ponytail swinging, and he turned to us.
“Steph is gonna watch with us for a little while, guys.”
Steph skipped over and plopped down next to Cubby.
“I didn’t ask for this,” Cubby said.
Tommy sat on the other side of her, then reached over and lightly tapped Cubby on the back of the head. “Knock it off. She’s not gonna bother us.”
Cubby rubbed his head like he’d just been hit with a baseball bat.
Why would Tommy let his sister horn in on our private time?
“Speaking of sisters,” I said, “I guess I’m gonna have another one.”
“Wow,” Tommy said. “One more makes three, huh?”
Cubby nodded. “That’s a lotta girls, Jack.”
“You’re only saying that because you don’t know what it’s like to have one, Cub.” Tommy looked at Steph, who was hypnotized by Dracula on the TV. “They aren’t all that bad.”
“I dunno, Tommy.” Cubby shifted on the mattress, getting ready to speak like he knew what he was talking about. “My cousin has two, and he never gets to do anything he wants to do.”
“Your cousin is a mean cuss, and I seen him being mean to them too.” Tommy had his arm around Steph now. Her head was leaning on his shoulder. “No reason for that.”
“Yeah.” Cubby frowned as he nodded, probably thinking about Tommy’s words. “You’re right.”
“Figure I better tell you guys something else too,” I said.
“Boy, you’re just full of news today, Jacko.” Tommy laughed.
I sighed. “I guess we’re moving to a new house too.”
Tommy’s head turned so quickly, I thought he snapped his neck. Cubby sat there slack-jawed.
“Don’t be fooling around like that, Jack.” Tommy looked serious.
“I’m not. Just found out tonight.” I shrugged. “But I’ll just be in a different house. Nothing else’ll change.”
“Who said that? Your folks?” Tommy shook his head. “Parents, they’ll tell you anything.”
The hard look on his face told me he was thinking about his father. I had only seen it a couple of times since his dad left, and this was one of those times. Tommy had a tough time trusting people since his dad sneaked out that night.
“They’ll say lots of things.” He stroked Steph’s hair, then wiped his nose with the back of his hand.
“Whatcha mean?” I asked. “You think we won’t be friends no more?”
If I’d admitted it to myself, I was afraid of that too. Your folks didn’t drive you far away to friend’s houses. If you couldn’t get there by yourself on your bike, you didn’t go. Unless it was something special, like a birthday party or a sleepover. But for just regular hanging out, that wasn’t the case.
Tommy rested his chin on the top of Steph’s head. “I just mean that things ain’t always like they say.”
“We’re always gonna be friends and hang out,” I said, and held out my palm to him. “Slap jack, matter of fact.”
That was a saying I made up a long time before, to let Tommy know I was serious about something. It stuck, and now we all used it as a way of saying, It’s all cool. Trust me. Friends forever.
Tommy looked at me and slapped his palm into mine. “Slap jack.”
Cubby scooted over to us and held out both of his hands, one to each of us. “Me too, guys. Come on.”
I slapped his hand. Tommy stuck out his index finger and poked it into Cubby’s side. Cubby bent over, giggling. Then Tommy slapped the top of his head. “Slap jack, Cubby.”
Cubby wiped at the candy spit in the corners of his mouth. “Weird, I never thought about people moving out. I only see new people move in.”
“Don’t be a dork, Cubby,” Tommy said. “Who do you think used to live in those houses people are moving into?”
Cubby grinned. “Oh, right.” Then his eyes grew wide. “But what about the haunted one? The one across the street from my house?”
“What about it?” Tommy asked.
“No one’s lived there for a long tim
e.”
“Not since old Mrs. Tremont,” I said.
“What’s your point, Cub?”
Cubby thought for a minute and shrugged. “Just that no one lives there, I guess.”
Tommy pointed a finger at his head and spun it in circles, making the sound of a cuckoo clock.
I laughed, and Cubby stuck out his tongue.
Tommy looked at Steph and realized she was sleeping. He picked her up and put her on the old sofa behind us, and covered her with a blanket.
“Why don’t you take her to her room?” Cubby asked.
“Because I don’t want her as scared as Jack is when he wakes up after seeing monster movies.” Tommy winked at me and Cubby chuckled. “How soon?”
I shrugged. “Mom said we’d be here for the whole summer.”
Tommy nodded. Cubby was watching him, knowing there was something brewing in his head.
“Then we’ve got some stuff we need to do,” Tommy said. “We gotta make this the best summer ever.”
I woke up to a clap of thunder and saw that Tommy was still awake, reading by the light of the flickering static on the TV screen.
“Whatcha still doing awake?” I rubbed my eyes and had a big yawn.
“Just waiting until the thunder stops,” Tommy said. “In case Steph gets scared.” He waved behind him to where Steph was still sleeping on the old sofa.
“It’s funny how you always gotta do stuff for her.” I wiped my nose with my forearm.
“Why’s it funny?” Tommy snapped.
I leaned back a little, surprised by his tone. He used to get angry right after his dad left, but he hadn’t done that for a long time now, and it took me off guard.
“I dunno,” I said. “It’s like you gotta be an adult or something and watch out for her.” I pulled my blanket over my shoulders. “You’re only a year older’n me.”
Tommy sighed and shrugged. “Your granddad told me I grew up fast.” A distant rumble of thunder gently rattled the windowpanes. He turned his head to check on Steph. “I don’t got nothing to compare it to, so I dunno. Sorry I jumped at you.”
“It’s okay, Tommy.” I wanted to say more, but didn’t know what.
Cubby said something about red hots in his sleep. The drool on his pillow was bright red from all of them he’d eaten earlier.
Tommy got up and walked to the window. “The storm is almost passed.”
I sat there on the mattress and looked at Tommy, his face reflected in the windowpane. He was staring off into the darkness, and it was several minutes before he said anything. It felt like there was more going on in his mind than just the storm.
“I know what you’re gonna say.” He turned to look at me. “But I kinda think I like a girl. I saw her the other day when I had to take Steph to Applebow’s Grocery.”
“Yuck,” I said.
But that wasn’t what I really felt. I think I’d only said it out of habit. What I actually thought was—well, I wasn’t sure. Whatever it was, it was something new and kind of scary.
And there was something strange in how Tommy mentioned the girl. Like she was someone familiar, or something.
Tommy let out a chuckle. “I knew it.” He pointed at me. “That’s exactly what I knew you’d say.”
“Do you think that’s what we’re supposed to do?” I stuck my finger in my ear and scratched an itch. “Are we supposed to like girls and stuff when we grow up?”
“Yep,” Tommy said. “Just look at Ryan.”
Tommy and Steph’s older brother was always hanging out with girls. But he was in the tenth grade. That was a long way away.
“They’re not as gross when you get older,” he said.
I raised a shoulder. “I guess.”
“You’re seeing that already, ain’t you?”
“Maybe.” I winced. “A little bit.”
“I ’spect we’ll be talking about girls one of these days, just like we talk about comics and movies and stuff.”
My face wrinkled up in disgust.
Tommy laughed at me. “Go back to sleep, you goof.”
I lay back down, and through sleepy eyes watched him walk over and check on Steph, pulling up the blanket and tucking her in.
He was sweet with her, even though they fought sometimes. Tommy, Steph, and Ryan all seemed to help each other a lot. And they did stuff together, like sitting in the yard playing with their toys, or watching movies on TV with big bowls of popcorn.
I didn’t do that with my sisters because they ruined my toys and jabbered through the movies. It was because of them my GI Joe had a bite mark on his forehead.
I figured Tommy must know some magic secret to getting along with girls that I didn’t understand. Maybe he’d share it with me someday.
And why did he get mad when I said it was funny he had to do stuff for Steph? He seems to like doing it.
Before I knew it, my heavy eyelids beat me and I was asleep again.
Chapter Five
July 1977
Summer days tended to run together when you were a kid. It was hard to know the difference between a Wednesday and a Saturday—they are all days off. That was one of the great benefits of being a child. At least, that was what Granddad said.
The downside was summer break could be half over before you knew it.
It had been several weeks since Tommy’s sleepover, and I was still thinking about him telling me that he liked a girl he saw at Applebow’s grocery store. It kind of felt like a violation of the unwritten rules that boys were supposed to live by, but at the same time it felt like it was supposed to be that way.
But I was also struggling with being the only boy in a growing house of women. Plus, I didn’t have the first clue how to be a good brother like Tommy was.
My morning was spent curled up with a blanket in my great-granddad’s wingback chair, which Mom kept in the TV room. Underdog saved the day on the television screen as I gobbled up the peanut-butter toast Mom had made me.
It was quiet. My sisters weren’t awake yet so I could hear Mom in the kitchen, humming a Stevie Wonder song to herself before the craziness of her day would begin with the rising of the little demons.
Slowly my mind woke up, and I started getting excited about the different adventures my friends and I could go on that day.
“Could you do me a big favor before you go out with your friends today?” Mom leaned in and kissed the top of my head. When she asked for a favor, it was another one of her tricks to get me to do something I didn’t really want to do.
I pulled the blanket up over my head and sighed. “What do you want me to do?”
Did she want me to clean my room? That was always a big one. That always started with, “Can you do me a favor?”
Maybe it was to pull weeds in the flower beds. Or to gather up all the dirty laundry upstairs and bring it down for her.
But the thing that threw me off was her asking for a big favor. I hadn’t heard that one before.
“Could you go through your toys in the basement and decide what you want to get rid of before we start packing?”
Wait a second—getting rid of things is part of this moving process? I must protest.
I pulled the blanket off my head. She was looking at me with that big mom smile, and for a moment, I saw Grandma in her face.
Curses! She wins again.
I slowly nodded and slid down off the chair.
“Thank you, Jack.” She tousled my hair. “Whatever you don’t want anymore, we’ll donate. Or you can give to your friends, if you’d like.”
I worked my way to the kitchen, pushed the basement door open, and walked down the stairs.
It was an unfinished basement, but it was warm and dry. The walls and floor were concrete, with some patches where it had cracked. Thick, rough wooden boards made up the stairs. If you were barefoot, you’d have to be careful of splinters, so Mom and Dad never let me go down without shoes or slippers on. It might have been a scary space, but it had a lot of light, so no fear o
f monsters or creatures hiding in the shadows.
My toys were scattered around. Mom had left several empty boxes for me to sort them. Most of them I was too old for—I knew that. I’d never play with them again, but the thought of having to part with them made my stomach hurt.
On the back wall of the basement was a short wooden door, about five feet tall, leading to a cold room under the back porch of the house. A cold room was a room in the basement where food could be stored and kept cool, or where people who did canning could store their jars. A lot of older houses had them, but Mom and Dad just used it to store Christmas decorations.
I walked over and pulled the little door open to peek inside. It was dark, but there was one fixture on the wall with a string you could pull to turn the light on.
I gave it a tug.
The room was no bigger than a large closet, and it didn’t have any windows. The walls were cool concrete and lined with wooden shelves. I very rarely had a reason to go in there, but I wanted to get one last peek at it before we moved, in case it didn’t cross my mind before then.
As my hand brushed against the door, I noticed notches carved into its edge, along with writing that labeled each mark. I’d never noticed them before.
Names and ages. It looked like the people who lived there before us kept track of ages and heights, just like we did on my bedroom doorjamb.
Anna, age 5. Susan, age 8. The tallest was Stephen, age 10. He was slightly shorter than I was. Another poor boy in a house full of girls.
I ran my finger over his name and wondered what he might have been like, and where they had moved.
Was he friends with someone in Tommy’s house, like I am? Did they play in the alley, and climb Stillson’s apple tree? Was the pine tree out front his favorite thinking spot too? Did he love this house as much as I do?
And I got to wondering what he might think of me living in his house—the one he probably didn’t want to leave either.
